A former St. John’s basketball player arrested for the four slayings in Florida had “no apparent motive” — but police are “100 percent confident” he’s the serial killer because his gun was used in all of the shootings, cops revealed Wednesday.
“The gun is what we needed,” Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan said at a news conference attended by family members of the victims. “The same gun was used in all four murders.”
Location data from suspect Howell Emanuel “Trai” Donaldson’s cellphone and shell casings also put him at the scene of at least three of the murders, he said.
The crack in the case occurred when the 24-year-old brought his legally purchased, loaded pistol in a bag to his job at a McDonald’s and asked a co-worker to hold it — but a manager instead handed it over to a cop, setting off probe that linked Donaldson to the semiautomatic handgun used in the crimes.
Donaldson was charged with four counts of first-degree murder following his arrest Tuesday, Dugan said.
“He was friendly and nice to the cops, but he didn’t give us anything, tell us why he was doing it or anything like that,” Dugan said. “He admitted that he owned the gun but he didn’t admit to the killings.”
Donaldson graduated from St. John’s University in January, according to school spokesman Brian Browne. He was a walk-on for the Red Storm during the 2011-12 season, but never played in a game, Browne said.
Police in New York said Donaldson had been arrested in May 2014, but the arrest was sealed and no details were available.
Police had earlier released a black-and-white surveillance video showing a man in a hoodie as a possible suspect, and by Halloween, fear in the community was so great that cops escorted kids while trick-or-treating.
Dugan did not identify the worker at the Ybor City McDonald’s to whom Donaldson handed the bag containing his handgun before he went to a nearby business to get a payday loan, according to an arrest report.
The employee told her manager about the gu n– which the manager gave to a cop who was doing paperwork at the fast food joint, who then alerted investigators. When Donaldson returned to the eatery, cops were lying in wait.
“The person who called us, I cannot thank them enough for standing up and doing the right thing,” the chief said, adding that the woman will likely be rewarded.
According to the report obtained by the Tampa Bay Times, police found .40-caliber shell casings at all four of the locations in the neighborhood where Monica Hoffa, Benjamin Mitchell, Anthony Naiboa and Ronald Felton were killed between Oct. 9 and Nov. 14.
A forensic analysis by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found that shell casings from the first three murder scenes were fired from a Glock pistol that Donaldson admitted to buying Oct. 3 at Shooter’s World in Tampa, the report says.
Store receipts showed he picked up the gun four days later, after a mandatory waiting period, along with a 20-round box of SIG-brand Smith & Wesson .40-caliber ammo.
Howell handed over the same gun to his co-worker on Thursday afternoon, the report says. It had a loaded magazine containing five S&W .40-caliber rounds.
Donaldson told authorities that “no one, except for himself had control of the Glock firearm since his purchase,” Detective Austin Hill wrote in the report.
The police chief said investigators do not believe Donaldson intended to turn himself in when he handed his gun over to his co-worker.
“I don’t think he wanted to get caught,” he said. “He gave it to her for safekeeping. Maybe he just trusted her and thought she wouldn’t look in the bag.”
The police report said a search of Donaldson’s cellphone found location data storage that indicated three days of recorded times and activities that correspond with the first three shootings on Oct. 9, Oct. 11 and Oct. 19.
Data from his phone showed he was in the area of 1300 E. Frierson Ave., in Southeast Seminole Heights, on the dates and times that matched those with the first three murders.
Other phone records showed that within minutes of the Oct. 9, 11 and 19 murders, Donaldson’s phone was “geographically associated” with an AT&T tower that provided coverage for the areas that encompass all four murder locations.
Donaldson told investiagtors that he “was unfamiliar with the area identified as the Seminole Heights neighborhood, and he did not have any association with anyone in the area,” Hill wrote.
During a search of Donaldson’s Ford Mustang parked at the McDonald’s, police found clothing similar to what a man was seen wearing in the surveillance video shortly before and after Mitchell’s murder, the report says.
His arrest Tuesday brought relief to the Seminole Heights neighborhood where the victims were targeted near bus stops after dusk last month.
Mayor Bob Buckhorn said he was proud of city, which “has now spent the last 51 days dealing with a serial killer.”
Asked what penalty he hopes Donaldson should face, the mayor said: “If he is found to be guilty, he should die. It’s that simple.”
Donaldson was being held without bail Wednesday in the Hillsborough County jail pending a court appearance Thursday.
With Post Wires